Thursday, June 6, 7:00 P.M.
Members $85, guests $110

"Portland is sometimes called the Burgundy of the North," Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl wrote last July in an issue of the magazine devoted to produce. "And with good reason, as I found just by walking into a restaurant called Paley's Place." While we're sure chef/proprietor Vitaly Paley was thrilled by the mention in Reichl's "Letter from the Editor," he respectfully disagrees. Paley concedes that the wines from the Willamette Valley are Burgundy-esque, but he thinks the food has more in common with Normandy. Both regions border the sea, and both cuisines emphasize seafood and the apple. Normandy, of course, is the land of butter and cream; in Oregon the number of artisanal dairy producers is on the rise.

France is close to Paley's heart. The French training he received at the CIA, and the year spent with his wife, Kimberly (who now runs the front of the house), apprenticing at the Michelin two-star Moulin de la Gorce, played a key role in his transformation from Juilliard-trained concert pianist to chef. (Jobs in New York at Union Square Cafe, Remi, and Chanterelle helped, too.) At Paley's Place, Paley "draws on the best of Oregon's bounty to infuse each order with haunting beauty," Karen G. Brooks wrote in The Oregonian. Paley has earned four-star reviews from The Oregonian, and Restaurant of the Year nods from The Oregonian and Willamette Week. Pierre Rovani of The Wine Advocate called Paley's Place "a God-send."

Pastry chef Jennifer Flanagan joined the staff seven years ago, just after the restaurant opened. A graduate of the Cordon Bleu in London, she still works the line a couple of nights a week to keep her cooking in top form. Jenny Tom of Epicurious.com loved Flanagan's "ethereal crème brûlée," and Karen Brooks wrote that Flanagan is "proving to be Portland's best dessert chef."

Why a Normandy Remembrance Dinner? Paley is far too young to have been among those who stormed the beaches (although his grandfather fought on the Allied front). There's that Normandy-Oregon connection we mentioned. Beyond that, it seems a good idea to pause from our usual culinary celebration of the good life to remember the brave men on that long-ago Longest Day, whose cross-Channel invasion helped turn the tides of World War II and change the course of history.